MILF also seeks justice for 18 rebs, 5 civilians

COTABATO CITY—The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is also calling for justice for 18 of its fighters and five civilians, who were killed in the clash with elite police commandos in Mamasapano, Maguindanao province, on Jan. 25.

“Seeking justice should not be confined on the (fate of the) SAF 44, but should be extended to include also the orphans and widows of the 18 MILF fighters and five civilians killed in the Mamasapano incident,” MILF chief peace negotiator Mohagher Iqbal said in a statement on Sunday.

Iqbal was referring to the deaths of 44 members of the Philippine National Police Special Action Force (PNP-SAF) who were killed during the fighting with armed men belonging to the MILF and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters following a botched operation to get Malaysian bomb expert Zulkifli bin Hir, alias “Marwan.”

It was not clear as to how the MILF wants justice served for the fallen MILF men, but Iqbal hinted that everything is hinged on the decision of Malaysia, a third-party country facilitator of peace talks between the Philippine government and the MILF, and which is aided by international observer-countries.

Culpability on the part of MILF members or of the government forces, if any, is best determined in an international forum in which the MILF is seen as a “nonstate actor,” Iqbal said.

During a Senate hearing on the Mamasapano tragedy last month, Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago raised the issue of the UN International Law on Belligerency by asking Justice Secretary Leila de Lima if the law could be applied to the MILF as a nonstate actor, instead of the national law on insurgency.

De Lima gave an affirmative reply, adding that “international laws form part of the laws of the land.”

Iqbal said he respected Santiago “as an erudite woman and an acknowledged constitutionalist.”

His statement also came amid reports that an Indonesian was among those killed with the MILF in Mamasapano.

On an accusation by Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano that the MILF was coddling a terrorist, Iqbal said the reality was that Indonesians freely travel from Davao del Sur to Indonesia, and vice versa, without visa requirements, and it was difficult to determine who among them was a foreign terrorist.

Regional trade cooperation agreements include waiver of the visa requirement on business tourists from member-countries of the Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East Asean Growth Area.

Moreover, “Indonesians are our brothers because they also (belong to the) Malay (race),” Iqbal said. “We only accord them the Bangsamoro hospitality. (But) we don’t (actually monitor) their activities.”

He added: “It has been said over again, from the time we wrote the President of the United States of America on January 20, 2003, that the MILF renounce terrorism and we have no links with terrorist groups, like the Jemaah Islamiyah.”

Iqbal stressed that the “misencounter” between the SAF and the MILF was a result of lack of proper coordination.

“What happened here (Mamasapano) was (that) there was no coordination. The last encounter between the MILF and military was in 2011 in Al-Barka (Basilan). Since then, there has been no encounter except until the tragic incident on Jan. 25,” he said. Nash B. Maulana, Inquirer Mindanao